Yellow Gorgonian help

[rick2010]

I have had a yellow gorgonian for several months now and I have never seen it open more than 10 or 15 polyps at a time. I see pictures of them online and they have all of their polyps out. I put food in the tank daily, and it is in moderate flow. Is it unhappy or is this normal? I know that it is non-photosynthetic, but does this mean that it cannot be directly in light? Any help is appreciated.

 

[brandonberry]

The biggest problem is that it is non-photosynthetic. The record for keeping these long term is grim. You would likely need to feed it more than once daily to get it to live long term and grow. Light should not harm it as long as it is not being covered by algae. Most likely it is starting to wither away and that is why it is not expanding polyps. If you really want to do what it takes to keep these, I'd recommend reading the article in Reefkeeping magazine from a couple months ago about keeping non-photosyntheic corals. Good luck.